Character: 荼
Modern (Beijing) reading: tú
Preclassic Old Chinese: Łā
Classic Old Chinese: Łā
Western Han Chinese: lā
Eastern Han Chinese: lā
Early Postclassic Chinese: dō
Middle Postclassic Chinese: dō
Late Postclassic Chinese: dō
Middle Chinese: do
English meaning : some kind of plant; bitter;a k. of rush, reed
Russian meaning[s]: 1) бот. осот (Sonchus oleraceus); 2) камыш; 3) вредить, губить; яд
Comments: Also read OC *ƛa, MC śö, FQ 商居, Pek. shū 'a k. of jade vessel' [LZ]. For the meaning 'bitter plant' there exists a dialectal late OC reading *lia (MC źa, FQ 食遮). An irregular parallel MC reading (also going back to *Łā) is ḍạ; this reading branched off from the original OC *Łā during late Han period and acquired the meaning 'tea'. At that time a special character for 'tea' (茶), being originally a variant of 荼, was also introduced. For *Ł- cf. Min forms: Xiamen, Chaozhou te2, Fuzhou, Jianou ta2; Siam. ǯhā (*ǯā).
Radical: 140
Four-angle index: 8318
Karlgren code: 0082 x
Shijing occurrences: 35.2
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